The putting on of a special garb by the vegetable world at each season in turn would be one of the first things to be manifested, and the close association of it with the stars and the sun in their yearly course would cause the representatives of it to be worshipped together with them, and it would appear from the records that the astronomer priests did not neglect those magical arts which were practised by man in the early stages of civilisation. Indeed, these magical practices seem to have taken such firm root that it was difficult to get rid of them even in much later times. Newton[52] writes: “I once knew a foolish cock-brained priest which ministered to a certaine young man the ashes of boxe, being (forsooth) hallowed on Palme Sunday, according to the superstitious order and doctrine of the Romish Church, which ashes he mingled with their unholie holie water using to the same a kind of... exorcisme; which... medicine (as he persuaded the standers by) had vertue to drive away any ague.” Among the virtues attributed to the May thorn was that of preserving the beauty of those maidens who at daybreak on May morning each year would wash themselves in hawthorn dew. As late as 1515 it was recorded that Catherine of Aragon, accompanied by twenty-five of her ladies, sallied out on May morning for this purpose. [41] Schübeler, _Die Pflanzenwelt Norwegens_, Christiania, 1873-75, p. 439. [42] _Hibbert Lectures_, p. 358. [43] The Rowan had to be cut on Ascension Day, _Golden Bough_, III, p. 448. [44] Pratt’s _British Flowering Plants_, vol. 2, p. 266. [45] The word bonfire, according to the _Century Dictionary_, comes from the “early modern English, boonfire, bondfire, bounfire, later burnfire; Scotch, banefire; the earliest known instance is banefyre. ‘ignis ossium,’ in the _Catholicon Anglicum_, A.D. 1483; from bone (Scotch, bane, Middle English, bone, bon, bane, &c.) + fire.” Hence the word seems formerly to have meant a fire of bones; a funeral pile, a pyre. And it has gradually developed into a fire out in the open, whatever its object. [46] _Celtic Folklore_, vol. i. p. 308. [47] Vol. ii. p. 691. [48] _Celtic Folklore_, vol. i. p. 325. [49] Second Edition, vol. iii. pp. 343 _et seq._ [50] _Teutonic Mythology_, Stallybrass’s translation, ii. 796. [51] Quoted by Hazlitt under Palm Sunday. [52] _Herbal for the Bible_, p. 207. CHAPTER XXI HOLY WELLS AND STREAMS I have thought it most important to look up this subject with a view of seeing whether any clues were available which could help us to associate the introduction of the well ceremonials with the worshippers of the May or of the Solstitial year. For shortness I will call the ceremonial “baptism,” not necessarily baptism in the modern sense, but as implying the use of water for purifying or other religious purpose. That baptism was pre-Christian is shown by John the Baptist using the Jordan for this purpose before Christ’s ministration began. (Matt. 3. 6.)